PaperCut Web Interface Wont Load

There are a number of possible issues that can cause the PaperCut Administration Console and User Web Pages to become unavailable. These can range from network issues, firewall settings, to stopped services to perhaps even a corrupt hard drive. This KB article will list many of the possible issues and their resolutions.

Common troubleshooting tools

In this KB article we will use some advanced troubleshooting tools such as ‘ping’, ‘telnet’, ‘traceroute’, ‘net start’ etc. We will provide example usage that is relevant for PaperCut troubleshooting.

ping - found on all operating systems, used to see if a destination computer / router / printer is online and responding.

telnet - found on all operating systems, used to see if basic TCP connections can be made to a destination computer / router / printer.

traceroute - found on all operating systems with slight variations, used to show the network path between two computers / routers / printers.

net start & net stop - found on Microsoft Windows operating systems. Used to start and stop services such as the PaperCut Application Server and PaperCut Print Provider.

Database problems

If you see the following errors you may have a database problem.

System temporarily unavailable - There was an error connecting to the database. Please try again later. If the problem persists, please contact your network administrator.

System currently unavailable - There was an error connecting to the PostgreSQL database. The system will attempt to reconnect in 30 seconds.

Connection refused. Check that the hostname and port are correct and that the postmaster is accepting TCP/IP connections.

If you are using an External Database please check that the PaperCut Application Server has good connectivity to the External Database and that the Database Services (Oracle, PosgreSQL, MySQL, MSSQL) are available and are not corrupt.

This error should normally only be seen when the PaperCut Application Server is booting (i.e. very early part of starting up). This process generally only takes a second or so. When the Application server is started you can refresh your Web Browser and the page will load.

If you have something else other than the above listed paths then you may have the wrong URL. Please check the URL and try again.

Socket errors and Stolen Ports

There are some times when the PaperCut Application Server just doesn’t start and when you look in the [app-path]\server\logs\server.log you see an error message that is very similar to the error message below:

In this instance it looks like something might already be listening on TCP port 9191, stopping PaperCut from running properly. We’ve had reports of Symantec Endpoint Protection causing this issue, there may be other applications that do this as well.

To troubleshoot this we need to find out what process has TCP port 9191 open. To do this, open a command prompt on the PaperCut Server and type in the following command:

netstat -abon > C:\papercut.txt.

Then open the C:\papercut.txt file and search for 9191. You will likely see results like this.

You can see that something is listening on TCP Port 9191. This is process ID 4872. It’s also listening on 9393 in this example. You can try opening Windows Task Manager, clicking on the Processes tab, then View → Select Columns and ticking PID (Process Identifier) and clicking OK. This should give you a list of PIDs to compare this against.

Using this, you should be able to narrow down what and where something is listening on PaperCut’s TCP port 9191.

Other services to check

If this is the case then there is no easy way to find out what was stopping the PaperCut Admin UI from loading.
Our support staff via remote software to a customers site have gone through a process of stopping a service, restarting the PaperCut Application Server service and refreshing the Admin UI. Below is a list of services that support have noticed can cause the Admin UI to return a 403 Forbidden error.

World Wide Web publishing service (IIS)

Appcore

ASCServiceManger

LightTPDService

PHPService

I use SUSE Linux and the Application Server just doesn’t start.

We have had a couple of reports that even though Yast (Yast2 etc) shows that PaperCut’s Application Server is set up correctly at the correct run levels, that the PaperCut Application Server just doesn’t run. If you invoke it manually via the /etc/init.d/papercut start command, it starts correctly.

In these couple of cases it was reported that changes needed to be made to the SUSE program AppArmor. The exact changes required are unknown at this time.

Anti-Virus

PaperCut has recently (March 2012) had reports that Sophos Endpoint Security and Control, version 9.7, can prevent the PaperCut Application Server from starting. This was resolved by adding an exception to Sophos.

Hey there! We use cookies. Why? They let us personalize content, track usage, and analyze data on our end to improve your experience. By continuing to browse our site, you accept our use of cookies per our privacy policy.